Sportsmen: Possible Impact Of Wolves On Elk 'Too High A Price'
	From the April 2000

Members of the Gila Fish and Gun Club discuss the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf at Lehmers Taxidermy in Pinos Altos on Thursday. Pictured from left to right are Brub Stone, Jeff Lehmer, Bill Kupke and Willie Gonzales. Sun-News photo by Sam Conn

By Sam Conn
Sun-News

Some local sportsmen are howling mad over the reintroduction of the Mexican gray wolf.

Four members of the Gila Fish and Gun Club met Thursday morning at Lehners Taxidermy in Pinos Altos to discuss the situation. Members of the club the like to hunt, fish and trap in the Gila National Forest and feel they are being pushed out of the forest by environmental causes.

According to Bill Kupke of Santa Clara, "People who support wolves are anti-gun. Ranchers are not anti-gun but they do have more control. The rancher gets reimbursed for any cattle they lose to wolves but the sportsmen don't get reimbursed for anything."

The group feels that the elk in New Mexico belong to sportsmen. Brub Stone, another Santa Clara resident, said, "Years ago there wasn't an elk in this country (Gila National Forest). The sportsmen paid to bring elk here and the do-gooders didn't do anything."

Ben Hanson, New Mexico Department of Game Wildlife specialist, confirmed Stone's claim. He said Thursday, "The first elk were brought to New Mexico in 1910 by the Vermijo Park, a ranch near Raton." He said the first elk were brought to southwest New Mexico in 1926 by the GOS Ranch in the upper Mimbres. The ranch started out with 26 elk and the herd grew over the years to 200, he said, adding that "Some of the elk escaped and so the ranch just let the rest of them go."

Hanson said the Department of Game and Fish in 1954 purchased the Tabor, Coleman and Hooker Ranches at Gila Hotsprings to reintroduce elk in New Mexico. "We put 19 elk from Yellowstone in near Willow Creek."

Hanson said his agency issued a statement that the New Mexico Game and Fish Department was against the release of wolves because they would eat the elk and his agency is working to build elk numbers. He said there are currently between 50,000 and 60,000 elk in New Mexico.

According to a study done by the Gila Fish and Gun Club on potential impacts of two packs of wolves on the elk population in Game Management Area 16B --which covers the majority of the Gila Wilderness and all four sites proposed for wolf placement -- the number of elk permits issued there could drop by 50 percent if the wolves kill 104 mature elk per year. The study said in 1999 400 rifle hunt permits and 400 bow hunt permits were issued. The hunts resulted in 215 elk harvested.

The Game and Fish Department estimates about 1,000 elk live in the Gila Wilderness.

The study states the "1998 Mexican Gray Wolf Interagency Management Plan defines unacceptable wolf impacts on game populations as 'two consecutive years with a cumulative 35 percent decrease in population or hunter harvest estimates for a particular species of ungulate in a game management unit ... compared to the pre-wolf five year average.'"

The study concludes that "Based on the hunter harvest figures of the New Mexico Game and Fish Department and the estimated number of elk that will be taken by two translocated wolf packs, the proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violates or conflicts with the management direction contained in their very own wolf management plan."

The one-page document concludes that a 50 percent reduction in elk hunt permits would be "too high a price for the hunting sportsman to pay to reintroduce the wolf into the Gila Wilderness."

Kupke said, "Just about the time someone does something nice for the sportsman they come up with something new ... now it's the grizzly bear."

"We are not going to give up. We have got to keep going ... someone has got to," Stone said. He said the group will continue to fight for sportsmen's rights.

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